Democracy

Democracy:

·         Our public lives are within the realm of politics. There are both private and public aspects of our lives (religion, tax, money, safety).

·         General rules of society are made and upheld by those who are in power. There are multiple types of power (power as decision making, power as agenda setting, power as thought control; hard power and soft power).

·         Legitimacy may come from consent, tradition or force. Power should be legitimate. Adolf Hitler is an example of loss of power and legitimacy. A modern example is the owner of the Sun tabloid newspaper. He has the ability to influence what goes in the paper and how it is written.

·         An example of direct democracy is Ancient Athens. However, it wasn't really direct democracy in that the citizens who participated in government practices couldn't be women, slaves, those under 20 or immigrants.

·         The UK is a form of representative democracy.

·         A representative democracy is where citizens elect representatives to make decisions on their behalf, all adult citizens have the right to vote for representatives, citizens pass their authority to their representatives and elections for representatives are free and fair.

·         A direct democracy is where individuals express opinions themselves, citizens are more active in decision-making and it's not elective.

·         Examples of direct democracy include referendums, initiatives and public consultations.

·         Though common, majoritarian democracy is not widely accepted - it was famously criticized as having the inherent danger of becoming a 'tyranny of the majority' whereby the majority in society could oppress or exclude minority groups.

·         The two main democratic systems are direct democracy and representative democracy.

·         advantages of social media for politics include: young people have become more politically involved, allows e-petitions, blogs correct many social media political errors, can represent and extension of democracy and an opportunity for young people to engage in politics.

·         Disadvantages of social media for politics:some of it is fake news, sometimes not all of the details are mentioned so the source is biased, difficult to distinguish between opinion and fact, may not give balanced and fair information, not all e-petitions allow a contrasting opinion and can lead to political manipulation.

·         An advantage of civil liberties is that everyone can say their opinion however, this makes it easier to manipulate others and people can spread hate.

·         An advantage of free market is that it allows a choice in key economic decisions, however, the bank will refuse you if you have no money.

·         An advantage of constitutional rights is that it protects the individual from inference by the state, however, it can restrain decisive government action in times of crisis.

·         Examples of a participation crisis include: not voting, MPs crossing the floor cause a lack of trust in MPs from the constituents, people have a lack of interest in politics, some think their…